| PhD Viva

Name of the Speaker: Mr. Raman Balireddy (EE17D302)
Guide: Prof. Anjan Chakravorthy
Co-Guide: Dr. Soumendra Nath Kuiry
Venue: CSD-308 (Conference
Online meeting link: https://meet.google.com/mrc-yktn-ned
Date/Time: 16th November 2023 (Thursday), 3:00 PM
Title: Application of Electrical Simulators andTheories for Solving Water DistributionNetwork (WDN) Problems

Abstract

The boundaries of existing cities are expanding rapidly due to the exponential growth in urban population. Therefore, the existing water distribution network (WDN) system needs to be extended to the newly developed areas to meet additional demand. The optimal design of a sub-network planned for network expansion requires multiple simulations under various constraints. Simulating the additional sub-network along with the existing network takes a lot of CPU time. The size of the problem becomes larger when the stochastic nature of domestic demands, optimal design and layouts,control, and operation of various hydraulic components are considered. Electrical circuits and WDNs belong to two branches of engineering, with some analogies. In recent decades, the complexity and size of electrical circuits have increased exponentially. To overcome this, powerful simulators and theories are developed. In this study, the analogy between electrical circuits and WDNs is exploited to solve severalWDN problems. By modeling all hydraulic elements with their analogous electrical elements, WDNs are implemented in an electrical simulator called QucsStudio for analysis.Even this open-source circuit simulator is sophisticated enough to manage hundreds of electrical (or hydraulically equivalent) components. To evaluate the performance ofQucsStudio, the same WDNs are also implemented in EPANET. The results obtained from the two simulators are compared, and it is observed that they show great accuracy.

In this study, network reduction methodologies are developed for single- and multi-port connections using the Thevenin theorem. The number of network elements in the equivalent network obtained using the Theveen is significantly less than the one obtained by the existing WDN reduction methods. It is possible to reorganize and expand a large existing network with prior knowledge of the most sensitive portion of the network. The accuracy and robustness of the proposed reduction methodologies are investigated by realistic WDNs by comparing their results with the established hydraulic simulator,EPANET. The applications of a single-port Thevenin equivalent network for optimal subnetwork design and finding the economic diameter for maximum power transfer are evaluated. Therefore, the proposed network reduction methods can greatly benefit hydraulic engineers. Finally, a methodology for finding Thevenin equivalent network based on multiple measurements at different nodal points of a large network for which complete layout information is unavailable is also developed. Therefore, the proposed network reduction methodologies can be helpful for hydraulic engineers when a particular part of the existing large network needs to be redesigned or expanded to new zones.